Why Use .Net?

A lot of people are putting a lot of thought about creating their own websites. Keeping one’s own space over the internet either for business or for pleasure is almost inevitable these days. Ever since the human race has discovered the fantastic and magical world of cyberspace, a good number of people felt the desire to also put something out there. And the possibilities are endless. There are websites about themselves, about their favorite TV shows, movie actors, and almost everything else under the sun. 

Now, if you’ve started to seriously think about making your own website, you don’t want just any other webhosting services. You want a real and proper website that you can call your own. Of course one of the most important things to think about when it comes to matters like this is what domain name you should get for your site. But then you might also be thinking, should I use .com or .net? Maybe the .org will suit your site well? What are the differences between these domain name extensions, really?

For those who don’t know yet, these extensions are called generic top-level domains (gTLD).  They are utilized over the world wide web’s domain name system. There are other categories like sponsored top-level domains (sTLD) or generic-restricted top-level domains too. However, the .com, .net, .info, and .org specifically belong to the gTLD category. The .com gTLD is obviously the most popular one out of the four. But then again, .net is often considered as a second placer to .com. In fact, it is the third most-used top-level domain, just after .de. Some people consider .net as an alternative to the .com. It is something people go for next when the desired .com domain name is no longer available.

It all boils down to how people look at it. The use of .net is just like going against the flow. Some people pick it because they’d rather be different. Plus, there’s something very interesting about .net. .Net is, if you don’t know, an abbreviation for “network”. But on the other side, it is also a Romanization of the Russian word nyet, which means “no” or “not”. So, when you use a domain name like “freedom.net”, then it could be interpreted as “there is no freedom”, which is a great way of making a statement. Who knew that domain names could be political or even poetic?

Another wonderful thing about .net is that it is very different from .com. A .net site can be promoted legally.  This could be useful, for example, with gambling sites. Since it is illegal in the United States to promote gambling online, what these sites do is that they run real-money games at a .com addresses and games that tie up with a .net website that don’t have any actual money involved. By capitalizing on this fact, these people could somehow, advertise the real-money website in one way or the other.

The most popular use by far though of .net is for technical websites, whose content contains information about technology, programming languages, computers and computer games and electronics etc.

Using a .net website extension has its own advantages. Make it yours and then plan your online success!